


Waiting

by Tmar22



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 20:06:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tmar22/pseuds/Tmar22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie Matheson sits in the cellar and tries to understand how she feels about her traveling companions, and how they feel about each other.  Glimpses of potential Charlie/Bass, Charlie/Connor, and Miles/Rachel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> This scene takes place after the opening scenes in Episode 2-13 ("Happy Endings") and before Bass, Connor, and Charlie depart for New Vegas.

Charlie Matheson looked around the room, her frustration mounting.  Four days had passed since Miles, Monroe, and Connor had obtained the typhus antidote.  Four days since they had saved Gene’s life and busted out of the quarantine camp.  Four days since she had laid eyes on Connor Bennett for the first time.  During those four days, they had been holed up in the cellar, waiting for Gene to regain his strength, waiting for…. something.  Charlie was climbing the walls.    
  
In the small room off the cellar lay Gene, still feverish and weak.  Rachel’s intense worry had waned since Gene had received the antidote, but she still hovered over him as if he were a sick child.  Yea … Charlie had dim memories of Rachel acting like this with Danny.    
  
Danny.  Charlie didn’t know what made her feel more guilty – the fact that she thought of Danny less and less frequently, the fact that she was allied with Danny’s killer, or the fact that when she looked at Bass now, it was increasingly difficult to remember that he was General Monroe.  She glanced over at Bass, who was sitting in the corner playing cards with Connor.  They barely spoke but were communicating just fine with their eyes and body language.  Every once in a while one of them would whisper to the other, or they would unexpectedly laugh.  A pang of jealousy ran through Charlie.  Everything was so fucked up.  She was so fucked up.  The six of them in this cellar, plus Aaron, wherever he was, were the only force opposing the United States government.  What a fucking joke.    
  
Charlie had no illusions.  She knew that they’d be all dead soon.  And honestly, that was okay.  She wasn’t crazy like Rachel, she wouldn’t end her own life willingly.  She’d go down swinging, go down defending everyone in this room.  But she knew it was coming, and coming soon.  After the Tower, after Nora died, something had broken inside Charlie.  Ben, Maggie, Danny, Nora.  Finding out that Rachel had been alive, that Miles had been responsible for taking her from their family.  Watching General Monroe save her life in the Tower after he’d tried to end it so many times before.  Knowing that Miles had chances to end him, and hadn’t taken them.  It was just too much.  On the long walk from the Tower to Willoughby, she had felt something vital inside her drain away.  She had felt her brain short circuit, unable to process all of the conflicting information and emotions.  Ever since Ben had died and Danny had been taken, Charlie had wanted someone to blame.  On their trip to Philadelphia, Miles had helped her identify the guilty party – General Monroe.  After they reached Willoughby with her crazy, suicidal mother, Charlie knew she couldn’t stay there.  It would all be over soon, but before it was, she was going to take out the boogeyman.  She was going to kill General Monroe.  
  
But the man she found in New Vegas wasn’t General Monroe.  When she first saw Jimmy King in the ring, shirtless, scruffy and sweating, she could still see General Monroe, standing tall and clean shaven in his uniform.  The intense, unforgiving look in his eye was the same.  She had no doubts when she aimed the crossbow at him and let an arrow fly.  But chained in the pool with him, around the campfires on the road to Willoughby, she began to see something else in his eyes.  Sure, when she challenged or mocked him, his eyes would ice, but they’d inevitably thaw and she’d be able to see the person that Miles had loved for most of his life.  She could see Bass.  
  
She wouldn’t have brought General Monroe back to Willoughby, no matter what the danger or how much he could help.  Not even because he’d saved her life.  She didn’t give a shit about helping him ease his conscience or make up for what he’d done to her family.  But the longer she spent with him after New Vegas, the less she saw General Monroe and the more she saw Bass.  And that confused the hell out of her.  If she could forget who he was for just one moment and look at him objectively, she understood the problem.  He was the most attractive man she’d ever met in her (admittedly sheltered) life.    
  
Bass Monroe was a very pretty man.  Scuffed and dirty, he was downright hot.  He just radiated sex, especially when he was fighting.  He was also the only man in their company, other than Aaron, that she wasn’t related to.  But it was more than that.  It was the way that he instinctively took charge.  The way that he could be counted on with a sarcastic quip and a broad smile to break the tension.  The way he made her feel important, and special, and included.  The way that he protected her but didn’t smother her.  Respected her enough to let her fight by his side, but always, always came back.  The scary non-verbal communication that he and Miles shared was downright electric when she found herself partnered with him.  Back in Sylvania Estates, Charlie was just a girl.  Good with the cross-bow, with dreams of adventure, but nothing special.  Fighting alongside Miles and Bass, allowed into their exclusive little club, she felt powerful.  She had always wondered how Miles, who was very capable in the post-Blackout world but not exactly the most magnetic personality, had managed to gather enough people to build the Militia and establish the Republic.  The more time she spent with Bass, the more she understood.  People would follow him anywhere.  
  
So yea, she was attracted to Bass.  And she still wanted to kill General Monroe.  So…. yea.  Fucked up.  
  
Connor and Bass laughed suddenly at some private joke and she glanced at them. Rachel told Charlie that Bass hadn’t initially recognized Connor as his son in Mexico.  What a fucking moron.  When Connor walked into that hospital tent in a Patriot’s uniform, Charlie had no doubt in her mind that he was Bass’ son.  Yea, he was pretty, the same ways that his father was.  But more importantly, over the past couple of days, the more she looked at Connor, the more she understood what Bass must have been like before the Blackout.  Before his began his slide into General Monroe.  She knew that Connor had been through a lot, but he still had this … innocence.  It was painful to look at him sometimes, because it reminded her how much they had all lost.  Charlie had no trouble believing Miles’ description of pre-Blackout Bass.  He might have been a shallow, womanizing, functioning alcoholic soldier, but he had been human.  Loyal and passionate, to a fault.  Fully capable of love and empathy.  Connor might have been the right hand man to a drug lord, living in a town filled with whores, but she saw that his bravado was a mask, a necessary adaption.  There was still a good person in there.  He hadn’t lost himself like his father had.  
  
Looking at Connor, she also saw what she had lost.  It was hard to even remember that stupid, naive little farm girl that stumbled into Miles’ bar in Chicago.  Mourning her father, but still believing that the world was a good place.  That there could be a happy ending.  That love and family were enough to save them all.  She’d come a long way.  She was no more hopeful than she was after the Tower, but she was no longer impotent.  She was a still scared – not of what might happen to her – but of what had already happened to her.  Like Connor, her bravado was still a mask, but Charlie was afraid that it wouldn’t be too long before she resembled Miles and Bass much more than the girl she had been.  Before she died, would she completely lose herself too?  Would anyone notice, or care, if she did?  
  
Today she sat in a cellar with General Monroe, the mentally unstable and ruthless dictator, and General Matheson, the bloody Butcher of Baltimore.  She sat in a cellar with Rachel Matheson, the genius who helped turn the power off, then was integral to turning it back on and raining missiles on Philadelphia and Atlanta.  She sat in a cellar with Gene Porter, who had cooperated with the Patriots and betrayed his family.  She sat in a cellar with Connor Bennett, whose father had impregnated his best friend’s fiancé, and then brought about her death before uprooting Connor from the only home he’d ever known.  The history between all of the people in this cellar was a million pound elephant in the middle of the room and besides the occasional quip, none of them were willing to fucking acknowledge it was there.    
  
She watched Miles and Bass when they talked strategy.  The comfortable, instinctive way they huddled together.  The way that Bass had started calling Miles “brother.”  The tense, nervous way that Miles’ eyes would dart to Rachel, as if he felt guilty about the slowly returning intimacy with his former best friend.  The pain that flitted across Bass’ face when Miles inevitably walked away.  She didn’t know what had happened between Miles and Bass before Bass’ execution, but Miles’ broken heart was on full display when he thought Bass was dead.  Charlie had no doubt that these stubborn fools still hadn’t resolved Miles’ betrayal or how they felt about each other and the mountain of guilt between them.  
  
She watched the tension between Miles and Rachel.  For god’s sake get a room.  She had no clue what had happened between the two of them, didn’t want to think about them cheating on her dad, or Miles luring Rachel to Philadelphia.  But she hadn’t been laid since before New Vegas.  She had enough personal sexual frustration to deal with – she didn’t need the frustration radiating off the two of them on top of it.    
  
She watched Rachel, covertly watching Bass.  She could tell that Rachel was almost as confused about Bass as she was.  General Monroe had only threatened to kill Charlie a handful of times, which had basically been cancelled out by the times Bass had saved her life.  She knew that Rachel’s history with General Monroe was much deeper, and would be much more difficult to overcome.  But even though she barely knew her mother, Charlie could tell that she was thawing.  A long way from forgiveness, but no longer actively homicidal.  She wondered how much that had to do with Miles, and how much it cost Rachel.  
  
Charlie really wanted to talk to Rachel, to try to understand how she had so readily forgiven Miles but was unable to forgive Bass.  Weren’t they equally complicit in setting up the Republic and the Militia?  In taking Rachel away from her family?  Maybe if she understood how Rachel rationalized her relationship with these two men, it would help her.  Of course, she didn’t think that Rachel was attracted to Bass and there was no way in hell she would ever confess that to her mother.  
  
Her mother.  Mother/daughter relationships are never easy, but Rachel had missed Charlie’s entire adolescence.  When she left, Charlie had been a kid.  When they reunited, after all the revelations, Charlie didn’t need, or particularly want, to have a relationship with her mother.  Charlie felt much closer to Miles, obviously, and even to Bass.  Of course, the reason that Rachel hadn’t been there for Charlie was because Miles and Bass had held her against her will in Philadelphia.    
  
Charlie let out an exasperated sigh and dropped her head to her knees.  Everything was so fucked up.  She was so fucked up.  All of her companions looked at Charlie questioningly.    
  
“I’ve got to get some air.  I’m going to take a walk,” she said.    
  
“Charlie...,” Miles warned.    
  
“It’s okay Miles, I’m not a moron.  I won’t go far.”  Rachel looked at Miles, expecting him to stop her willful daughter, but Miles simply shrugged.  
  
Connor gave Charlie a blinding smile – “You want some company?”  Charlie hesitated for a moment.  That boy was cute.  And hadn’t she just been thinking about how sexually frustrated she was?  Stolen moments with the most uncomplicated person in the cellar might not be a bad idea.  But she couldn’t help but notice the blistering look that Bass tried to hide as she considered his son’s offer.  Interesting.    
  
Charlie smiled widely back at Connor – “No, thanks, I just need a little alone time.”  Bass barely reacted as he studied his cards, but she could see that he was relieved.  She wasn’t even going to think about what that meant.  
  
As she climbed the stairs, Charlie’s mind continued to run.  She had no idea what was going to happen tomorrow, no idea how long any of them had to live.  But she was tired of waiting and if something cathartic didn’t happen soon – with the Patriots, with all of their tortured interpersonal relationships, with …. shit, with Bass – she was going to have to be the one to light the match.  Charlie was going to get what she could, while she could.  She planned to go out swinging.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading fan fiction for 15 years, but this is my first attempt to publish anything. I would greatly appreciate feedback. If it doesn't work, it'll just be a one-shot, but please let me know if you're interested in reading more.


End file.
